Securing content using pipelines

ABSTRACT

A transcoding service is described that is capable of transcoding or otherwise processing content, such as video, audio or multimedia content, by utilizing one or more pipelines. A pipeline can enable a user to submit transcoding jobs (or other processing jobs) into an available pipeline, where a transcoding service (or other such service) assigns one or more computing resources to process the jobs received to each pipeline. The transcoding service and the pipelines can be provided by at least one service provider (e.g., a cloud computing provider) or other such entity to a plurality of customers. A service provider can also provide the computing resources (e.g., servers, virtual machines, etc.) used to process the transcoding jobs from the pipelines.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application is a Continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.14/462,425 filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Aug. 18,2014, which is a Continuation of, and accordingly claims the benefit ofSer. No. 13/750,978, now U.S. Pat. No. 8,813,245, filed Jan. 25, 2013,both of which are hereby incorporated herein by reference.

BACKGROUND

In recent years, there has been a surge of development and releases ofnew types of mobile devices made available to the public. Today'sconsumer is often equipped with a smart phone, tablet, portable mediaplayer or other device that can be used to access the internet, downloadand view digital media (e.g. video and audio files), and perform a widevariety of other functions. Given such large numbers of devices anddevice types, it is quickly becoming a non-trivial task to make mediacontent available to all of the consumers across their various devices.In fact, many companies are spending large fractions of their time andresources managing, scaling and maintaining media processing systemsthat may have nothing to do with their core business. These companiesare looking for encoding systems and services that can provide the bestvideo/audio quality to consumers at a low cost. Because digital video(and audio) content is often delivered to multiple device types overunmanaged networks with fluctuating bandwidth, it is desirable toproduce a version of each asset to accommodate some or all of thesevariants.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Various embodiments in accordance with the present disclosure will bedescribed with reference to the drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 illustrates an example of using pipelines for schedulingtranscoding jobs, in accordance with various embodiments;

FIG. 2 illustrates an example of scheduling transcoding jobs submittedto various pipelines, in accordance with various embodiments;

FIG. 3 illustrates an example of securing content and using permissionsassociated with pipelines, in accordance with various embodiments;

FIG. 4 illustrates an example of using pipelines to organize transcodingof content by media type or device type, in accordance with variousembodiments;

FIG. 5 illustrates an example of a process for utilizing pipelines toschedule transcoding jobs, in accordance with various embodiments;

FIG. 6 illustrates an example of a process for securing content andusing permissions associated with pipelines, in accordance with variousembodiments;

FIG. 7 illustrates an example of a process for using pipelines toorganize transcoding of content by media type or device type, inaccordance with various embodiments;

FIG. 8 is a general example of an environment in which the transcodingand other processing of media content can be implemented, in accordancewith various embodiments; and

FIG. 9 illustrates a logical arrangement of a set of general componentsof an example computing device that can be utilized in accordance withvarious embodiments.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the following description, various embodiments will be illustrated byway of example and not by way of limitation in the figures of theaccompanying drawings. References to various embodiments in thisdisclosure are not necessarily to the same embodiment, and suchreferences mean at least one. While specific implementations and otherdetails are discussed, it is to be understood that this is done forillustrative purposes only. A person skilled in the relevant art willrecognize that other components and configurations may be used withoutdeparting from the scope and spirit of the claimed subject matter.

Systems and methods in accordance with various embodiments of thepresent disclosure may overcome one or more of the foregoing or otherdeficiencies experienced in conventional approaches for processingcontent, such as digital media. In particular, the various embodimentsprovide approaches for transcoding or otherwise processing content, suchas video, audio or multimedia content, by utilizing one or morepipelines. A pipeline can enable a user to submit transcoding jobs (orother processing jobs), where a transcoding service (or other suchservice) assigns one or more computing resources to process the jobsreceived to each pipeline. The transcoding service and the pipelines canbe provided by at least one service provider (e.g., a cloud computingprovider) or other such entity to a plurality of customers. A serviceprovider can also provide the computing resources (e.g., servers,virtual machines, etc.) used to process the transcoding jobs from thepipelines.

In various embodiments, a pipeline can be any data structure capable ofstoring and managing jobs (e.g., transcoding jobs) submitted by a userto the transcoding service. A transcoding job can connect an input store(or other location) containing the content (e.g., media file) to beprocessed with an output store where the processed content (e.g.,resulting transcoded file) will be stored, at least temporarily. Jobsare processed from each pipeline sequentially, in the order in whichthey were received to the pipeline. A pipeline can allow multiple jobs(e.g., transcoding jobs) to be processed simultaneously by the variouscomputing resources. In some embodiments, a pipeline may have a widthassociated therewith, where the width specifies a value such as themaximum number of concurrent jobs that can be processed by the pipelineat any given time. Because the jobs submitted to the pipeline may varyin size or length (e.g., minutes of video), the jobs may often befinished out of the sequential order (e.g., in a different order fromthe order in which they were submitted to the pipeline).

In accordance with one embodiment, the customers of the service providercan use the pipelines to manage their transcoding jobs. For example, ifa customer has one pipeline that is full with multiple jobs waiting tobe processed, the customer may choose to schedule the next job (e.g.,urgent job) to a different pipeline (e.g., empty pipeline) that iswaiting for such urgent jobs. In this manner, the customer can managehow much work is submitted to each pipeline.

In accordance with another embodiment, the customers of the serviceprovider can use the pipelines to control permissions and otherwisesecure the transcoding of their content. For example, if the customerhas multiple departments having need to transcode media content, thecustomer may specify which users or groups of users (e.g., departments)have permissions to access which pipelines. In this manner, the usersbelonging to a particular department may be given permissions to accessa higher priority pipeline if the content of that department is deemedmore important to the customer.

In accordance with another embodiment, the customers of the serviceprovider may use the pipelines to organize the transcoding of content bymedia type, by device target or based on other characteristics. Thecustomer may associate one or more presets (e.g., groupings oftranscoding settings and parameters) with each pipeline, where anytranscoding jobs being submitted to the pipeline will have the presetsapplied to them. For example, the customer may choose to have the mediacontent targeted for mobile phones and tablet computers going throughone pipeline, while media content targeted for television devices isgoing to a different pipeline. Alternatively, the customer may choose tohave their social media content going through different pipelines thantheir premium content. In either event, the customer may specify (e.g.,via an API call) that a pipeline should have a particular presetassociated with the pipeline, such that whenever a transcoding job issubmitted to that pipeline, the transcoding job will utilize theparticular parameters of that preset to transcode the content.

FIG. 1 illustrates an example 100 of using pipelines for schedulingtranscoding jobs, in accordance with various embodiments. Asillustrated, a transcoding service may provide to the customer 101 oneor more pipelines (102, 104, 106) that can be used to manage thescheduling of various transcoding jobs of the customer. A pipeline canbe any data structure (e.g., queue) that can be used to store and managetranscoding jobs being submitted to the transcoding service. There maybe multiple pipelines corresponding to a single customer account. Whensubmitting a transcoding job to the transcoding service, the customer101 (e.g., authorized user under the account) can use an applicationprogramming interface (API) to select one of the pipelines and to submitthe transcoding job to that pipeline. Once the job is submitted, thepipeline will store the job until the job is started. A pipelinefunctions similarly to a job queue in the sense that the first jobsubmitted to the pipeline will be the first job to begin. However,multiple transcoding jobs may be processed simultaneously from a singlepipeline at any given time. In some embodiments, the pipeline has amaximum width that specifies the maximum number of concurrenttranscoding jobs that are being processed in the pipeline. All remainingjobs in the pipeline are scheduled to wait to be processed. Becausetranscoding jobs vary in the number of minutes of video (or the size ofthe file), it will be common for various transcoding jobs to finish in adifferent order than the order in which the jobs were started. As such,while jobs are started in the order that they are received to thepipeline, in many cases, the pipelines will not utilize strict First in,First out (FIFO) prioritization because the first jobs submitted to thepipeline will not always finish first.

In various embodiments, a user may create a transcoding job by invokingan API call of the transcoding service. A transcoding job can connect aninput store (or other content source), an output store (or other suchrepository), a preset (e.g., transcoding parameters) and an option to benotified about the job progress (e.g., when the job is processing,completed, etc.). The input store contains the content to be transcoded(or otherwise processed) by the transcoding job and the output store isthe designated location into which the transcoded content will be placedonce the transcoding job is completed. The input store and the outputstore can be any location capable of storing content, such as adirectory, database, file system, network accessible storage location orthe like. In some embodiments, the input store and the output store canbe in the same location.

As previously mentioned, to schedule a new transcoding job, the customer101 may enter a new job into the system, select a pipeline out of theplurality of pipelines (102, 104, 106), and invoke a request to submitthe new transcoding job to the pipeline. For example, to select thepipeline, the customer may invoke an API call, passing the pipelineidentifier (ID) as a parameter to the API call. In addition tospecifying the pipeline, the API request may also specify a preset(i.e., a profile) to be used with the transcoding job. In oneembodiment, a preset (i.e., profile) is a re-usable set of transcodingparameters that are designed to support on or more classes of devices.The preset can be provided by the transcoding service. Some presets canbe generic (e.g., applicable to multiple device types), while otherpresets are optimized for a specific device type. For example, a“Generic 1080P” preset may contain the transcoding parameters andsettings to transcode a media file into a format in 1080P definitionthat is viewable on multiple types of devices. Similarly, an “iPhone 4S”preset may contain the transcoding parameters and settings to transcodethe media file into a format viewable on an iPhone of model 4S. Invarious embodiments, numerous other presets can be provided by thetranscoding service.

Once the new job has been submitted (e.g., using the API) to thepipeline, the new transcoding job will be scheduled to begin in thesequential order that it was received in the pipeline, while stillmaintaining the number of concurrently executing jobs within the maximumallowed limit. Thus, if there are no transcoding jobs executing in thepipeline at the time of submitting the new job, the new job can begin tobe processed immediately. Similarly, if the pipeline's width allows foradditional concurrent jobs, the new job can be started immediately.However, if the pipeline is already executing the maximum allowed numberof concurrent jobs (e.g., specified by the width of the pipeline), thenew transcoding job will be queued to begin in the order that it wasreceived.

In the illustrated embodiment, pipeline 102 includes five transcodingjobs that have been submitted to the pipeline 102 in the order startingfrom the bottom to the top. More specifically, Job N was the first jobsubmitted to the pipeline 102 and Job N is currently processing. Job N+1was the next job submitted and this job is now complete, as indicated inthe figure. Job N+2 was the next job submitted and it is currently beingprocessed. In the illustrated embodiment, the pipeline 102 has acorresponding width of 2, i.e., the maximum number of jobs that can besimultaneously executed from the queue. Jobs N+3 and N+4 were submittedand are currently waiting to begin in the sequential order that theywere received. Similarly, pipeline 104 has two jobs that have beensubmitted to it by the customer, where Job M is currently in progressand Job M+1 is complete. Pipeline 106 is empty and ready to begin anyjob submitted to it.

In accordance with one embodiment, all pipelines can be equal from theservice point of view in terms of resources assigned to the pipeline,but the customer may choose to designate the pipelines differently tofill different needs. For example, a customer may submit low priorityjobs to one pipeline and reserve a second empty pipeline for gettinghigh priority jobs through the system quickly. As an illustration, thecustomer 101 may reserve pipeline 106 for urgent or other high prioritytranscoding jobs, while pipeline 102 may be used for all low prioritytranscoding jobs.

In various embodiments, to process the jobs from the pipelines (102,104, 106) the service assigns one or more computing resources that arecapable of processing the transcoding jobs. The computing resources caninclude any resource capable of being used to transcode or otherwiseprocess content, such as a physical server device, virtual machine, aspecified amount of computing capacity, or the like. When thetranscoding job is started from a pipeline, the one or more computingresources that have been assigned to the transcoding job begintranscoding the content stored in the input store corresponding to thepipeline. Once the transcoding is complete, the transcoded content canbe stored in the output store corresponding to the pipeline. In someembodiments, the pipeline may issue a notification to the customerwhenever the transcoding job is completed.

In various embodiments, pipelines can be used by the customer as a wayto obtain more or less parallelism. For example, each pipeline can beallocated a default portion of all computing resources by thetranscoding service. If the customer wishes to obtain access to morecomputing resources or more transcoding capacity, the customer maycreate an additional pipeline, such as by invoking an API call to thetranscoding service. In other embodiments, the customer may be allowedto increase the maximum width of a particular pipeline.

In various embodiments, the term “transcoding” can refer to anytransforming of the content from a first media format into a secondmedia format or otherwise processing content as described herein.Conventionally, transcoding refers to the decoding and recoding ofdigital content from one format to another. Transcoding is sometimesused to enable playback of media on different devices. It can be used toconvert a digital audio, video file, and video streams from one digitalform or codec to another (e.g. MPEG2 to h.264 transcoding). Transcodingcan also be used to adjust the bit rate of a video file and resize videoresolution. Transcoding takes place in order for content to reachmulti-screen end-user destinations. The complexity of transcoding cancome from the vast range of devices, networks, and channels that mayneed to be supported. As used throughout this disclosure, the terms“transcode” and “transcoding” should be broadly construed and are notlimited to any particular formats, bit rates, media types or devicetypes. Furthermore, transcoding is not limited to changing the encodingformat of media and, in some embodiments, may not include changing theencoding format at all. For example, in some cases, transcoding thecontent may include transmuxing, digital watermarking, segmenting,applying access controls, adding meta data, inserting advertisements,translating into various languages, transcribing, changing bit rates,sequencing, changing or adding audio associated with a video, ormodifying, customizing, or making compatible various other features ofcontent in any other manner. By way of illustration, one job submittedto a pipeline could include segmenting a video file for multi-bitratesupport and adding audio to the video file and another job could includedigital watermarking and applying access controls to the file.

FIG. 2 illustrates an example 200 of scheduling transcoding jobssubmitted to various pipelines, in accordance with various embodiments.The scheduling model shown in FIG. 2 illustrates multiple customers(210, 212, 214) with multiple pipelines (202, 204, 206, 208), where eachpipeline is processing multiple transcoding jobs. As previouslymentioned, each pipeline may be associated with a maximum width W thatlimits the number of concurrently executing jobs in that pipeline. Inone embodiment, the pipelines can be allocated enough computingresources such that each pipeline is capable of operating tosimultaneously process W jobs at a designated rate. The customers may beallowed to create pipelines up to a default account limit. For purposesof illustration, in FIG. 2 the width value of W=2 is associated witheach pipeline, i.e. each pipeline may be processing up to 2 jobssimultaneously at any given time. However, in other embodiments, thewidth assigned to a pipeline can be any arbitrary number so long asenough computing resources exist to support it.

In the illustrated embodiment, transcoding jobs (220, 222, 224, 226,228, 230) have been submitted by customers 210, 212 and 214. Thetranscoding service pulls the transcoding jobs from the pipelines (202,204, 206, 208) and schedules them to be processed by the computingresources (232, 234, 236). As previously mentioned, the computingresources (232, 234, 236) can include but are not limited to physicalservers, virtual machines or other units of computing capacity. In thisparticular example, there are three pipelines that have transcoding jobsand the width of each pipeline is 2 (meaning that the maximum number oftranscoding jobs that can be concurrently executed is 2). As such, theservice is capable of allocating enough computing resources to ensurethat the total of 6 jobs can be executed at once. As illustrated in thefigure, if a sudden burst of activity causes a shortage of computingresources, transcoding jobs may back up in a scheduling queue in theorder in which they were entitled to processing (e.g., order in whichthey were received). These scheduled jobs (226, 228, 230) will bestarted in the order received. Thus, in this example, the transcodingservice will allocate three additional computing resources (not shown)to process the scheduled jobs (226, 228, 230) waiting in the pipelines.

The computing resources assigned to the various pipelines can be scaledaccording to the load of incoming transcoding jobs. As the load ofincoming jobs rises, new computing resources can be added or provisionedto handle the additional load. When the load decreases, those computingresources may be de-allocated from processing jobs from the pipelines.In one embodiment, each pipeline may be associated with a maximum amountof computing resources. Each pipeline can be operated at the lesser ofthis maximum or the number of incomplete jobs in that pipeline. In thisembodiment, to determine the total amount of needed computing resources,this requirement can be added up across all pipelines. Furthermore, itmay be advantageous to maintain a buffer of resources to handle newrequests quickly. The size of that buffer can grow with the number ofcurrently needed computing resources. Furthermore, hysteresis and delaycan be added to the system to avoid over-reacting to short-livedstimuli.

In one embodiment, to control the scaling of the computing resources, aminimum and maximum utilizations (e.g., U_(min) and U_(max)) can bedefined as a function of the number of needed computing resources. Inthis embodiment, the resources are scaled when those boundaries arecrossed. That is, computing resources can be added when utilization isgreater than U_(max) and computing resources can be de-allocated whenthe achieved utilization falls below U_(min). To further guard againstthrashing, a computing resource should not be de-allocated if it hasbeen running less than a predetermined time interval (e.g., 45 minutes).

FIG. 3 illustrates an example 300 of securing content and usingpermissions associated with pipelines, in accordance with variousembodiments. In the illustrated embodiment, a customer 301 that hassigned up to use the transcoding service may have multiple departments(320, 322, 324) having the need to transcode digital media. Eachdepartment may have a plurality of users that have been granted tosubmit transcoding jobs to the transcoding service.

In various embodiments, the customer 301 (e.g., privileged user haveadministrator access) can specify which user has permissions to whichpipelines (302, 304, 306). For example, as illustrated in FIG. 3, thecustomer 301 may grant users in department 320 access to submittranscoding jobs to pipeline 302, while users in departments 322 and 324may be granted access to submit transcoding jobs to pipeline 304 and 306respectively. In this embodiment, the users from department 322 wouldnot be allowed to submit transcoding jobs to pipelines 302 and 306.

In accordance with an embodiment, a pipeline is assigned permissions atleast one content store (e.g., an input store and/or an output store)instead of the customers department. For example, pipeline 302 isassigned permissions to input store 314 and output store 308, whilepipeline 304 is assigned permission to input store 316 and output store310 and pipeline 306 is assigned permissions to input store 318 andoutput store 312. The permissions can be assigned to the pipelines bythe customer 301 or by some other authorized user. In one embodiment,the permissions assigned to the pipeline include read and writepermissions to any file stored in the particular content store.

Once the permissions have been assigned, when a request to submit atranscoding job to the pipeline is received from a user, the transcodingservice can first determine whether the user has been grantedpermissions to the pipeline. If the user has not been grantedpermissions to submit transcoding jobs to this pipeline, the request maybe denied. Furthermore, the transcoding service may also determinewhether the pipeline has been granted permissions to access the contentstore that contains the content specified by the transcoding job. If thepipeline has not been granted permissions to access the content, therequest to submit the transcoding job can be denied. If both thepipeline and the user have been granted appropriate permissions, thetranscoding job can be scheduled in the pipeline in the sequential orderreceived, as previously described.

In various embodiments, the assignment of permissions in this mannercreates an environment which can allow a user to invoke a transcodingjob while never having access to either the input store or the outputstore (which are controlled by the root account). For example, the usersin department 320 can submit transcoding jobs to pipeline 302, wherethose transcoding jobs will transcode content stored in input store 314,however the users in department 320 may not have permissions to actuallyread or write content directly to input store 314. This may be importantin situations where the content is highly sensitive, such as in the caseof movies that are waiting to be released and it is desirable to keepthe content from being leaked. The split of permissions in this mannerwould enable the users belonging to department 320 to initiate all thetranscoding jobs and have the transcoded versions of content ready forrelease, all without granting access to those users to copy ordisseminate the content.

A further effect of assigning permissions in this manner is that eachpipeline could have access to different content stores, thereby allowingthe customer 301 (e.g., root account) to control the number ofconcurrent jobs any user can process concurrently (by how many pipelinesthe user is granted access to) and which content stores a user canprocess to and from (by controlling which content stores the pipelinehas access to).

As previously mentioned, the customer 301 can set the permissions neededfor both the pipelines and the users so that the customer is aware ofthe access that is being given to the transcoding service. In oneembodiment, the customer 301 can establish a role that a computingresource of the transcoding service can use for its access. Thecomputing resource can obtain a session token to perform the transcodingwork as necessary. In one embodiment, the computing resource willrequest a minimal permission (e.g., read/write permission) sessionregardless of the permissions granted to the role. If the role createdby the customer does not grant the computing resource minimum access,the request to submit the transcoding job may fail (e.g., be denied).

FIG. 4 illustrates an example 400 of using pipelines to organizetranscoding of content by media type or device type, in accordance withvarious embodiments. As previously described a customer 401 may have aplurality of pipelines (402, 404) provided by the transcoding service.In the illustrated embodiment, the customer 401 can use the pipelines toorganize transcoding jobs by media type or by device target. Forexample, to organize by media type, the customer may have their socialmedia content transcoding jobs going through one pipeline (e.g.,pipeline 402) while the premium content uses a different pipeline (e.g.,pipeline 404). Similarly, to organize by device target, the customer maydirect transcoding jobs for content targeted for mobile phones andtablet computers to one pipeline (e.g., pipeline 402), while contenttargeted for television connected devices may be processed using anotherpipeline (e.g., pipeline 404). Organizing content transcoding in thiscontent makes it easier for the customer to diagnose problems if thereis any problem with content output that occurred in the transcoding.

To organize content transcoding in this manner, the customer 401 (e.g.,authorized user under the customer account) may specify one or more setsof parameters (e.g., groupings of transcoding settings) that should beassigned to each pipeline. In one embodiment, the customer may identifythe parameters using an API call to the transcoding service. In someembodiments, the transcoding may provide a number of “preset” groups ofparameters for specific device types, media types and the like. In thoseembodiments, the customer may simply select the particular groupings ofparameters of interest to be associated with the pipeline.

When the transcoding service receives the API call, the transcodingservice can associate each set of parameters with the specific pipeline,as indicated by the customer. Thereafter, when a user submitstranscoding job to the pipeline, the service will apply those parameterswhen processing the transcoding job. For example, as illustrated in FIG.4, the pipeline 402 is associated with parameters 406, whereas pipeline404 is associated with parameters 408. In various embodiments, somepipelines may have multiple groupings of transcoding parametersassociated therewith, while other pipelines may have one group ofparameters or no parameters associated therewith. If the pipeline doesnot have any parameters associated with the pipeline, the transcodingjob may need to identify the particular settings to be used intranscoding the content, or at least select a particular profile orpreset of parameters provided by the transcoding service.

In various embodiments, the pipeline may also be associated with aworkflow that is executed on any transcoding jobs submitted to thepipeline. The workflow may include any number of actions, including theactual transcoding of the content, adding digital rights management(DRM), adding watermarks or other security information, insertingadvertisements, segmenting the file, translating the file into differentlanguages, or the like. For example, the workflow may specify that thecontent be first transcoded into a number of different formats and thenwatermark information be added to each version of the transcodedcontent, all as a result of the job being scheduled to the pipeline.

FIG. 5 illustrates an example of a process 500 for utilizing pipelinesto schedule transcoding jobs, in accordance with various embodiments.Although this figure may depict functional operations in a particularsequence, the processes are not necessarily limited to the particularorder or operations illustrated. One skilled in the art will appreciatethat the various operations portrayed in this or other figures can bechanged, rearranged, performed in parallel or adapted in various ways.Furthermore, it is to be understood that certain operations or sequencesof operations can be added to or omitted from the process, withoutdeparting from the scope of the various embodiments. In addition, theprocess illustrations contained herein are intended to demonstrate anidea of the process flow to one of ordinary skill in the art, ratherthan specifying the actual sequences of code execution, which may beimplemented as different flows or sequences, optimized for performance,or otherwise modified in various ways.

In operation 501, the transcoding service provides a plurality ofpipelines that can be used for scheduling transcoding jobs. Eachpipeline is assigned one or more computing resources operable to executethe transcoding jobs submitted to the pipeline. In one embodiment, eachpipeline corresponds to a respective input store that contains thecontent to be transcoded and a respective output store into which thetranscoded content will be stored.

In operation 502, the transcoding service receives, from a user, arequest to submit a transcoding job to a pipeline. The pipeline isselected by the user from the plurality of pipelines provided by theservice. In one embodiment, the request is submitted using an API call.The API call can specify the job, the pipeline and a preset (e.g.,grouping of parameters).

In operation 503, the transcoding service schedules the new transcodingjob in the selected pipeline according to the order of jobs received tothe pipeline. For example, at the time of receiving the new transcodingjob, the selected pipeline may already contain a plurality of otherscheduled transcoding jobs waiting to be processed, where two or moretranscoding jobs are being processed simultaneously.

In operation 504, the transcoding service may process the transcodingjob in the pipeline using one or more computing resources. Transcodingthe content may include transforming the content from one media formatinto a different media format. In some embodiments, the amount ofcomputing resources assigned to process jobs from the various pipelinescan be scaled up or down according to the load of transcoding jobs beingreceived in all of the pipelines.

In operation 505, when the transcoding job is finished, the service maystore the transcoded media content in the output store. In someembodiments, the output store may be a different location from the inputstore. In other embodiments, the output store may be the same locationas the input store.

FIG. 6 illustrates an example of a process 600 for securing content andusing permissions associated with pipelines, in accordance with variousembodiments. As illustrated in operation 601, the transcoding serviceenables a customer to associate a first set of permissions with apipeline. This first set of permissions enables any transcoding jobsubmitted to the pipeline to access (e.g., read and write) the contentstored in the content store.

In operation 602, the transcoding service enables the customer to assigna second set of permissions to a user (or group of users). The secondset of permissions enable the user (or group of users) to submittranscoding jobs to the pipeline.

In operation 603, the transcoding service receives a request from a userto submit a transcoding job to a pipeline. In step 604, the service candetermine whether the user was granted the second set of permissions tothe pipeline. If the user was granted the second set of permissions tothe pipeline, the transcoding job is scheduled to the pipeline, as shownin operation 605. In some embodiments, the transcoding service mayfurther check whether the pipeline has been granted the first set ofpermissions to access the content store specified by the transcodingjob. If the pipeline has not been granted the permissions, the servicemay deny the job from being scheduled to the pipeline. In alternativeembodiments, the service may still allow the transcoding job to bescheduled to the pipeline on the assumption that the pipeline will begranted the permissions to access the store in the near future.

FIG. 7 illustrates an example of a process 700 for using pipelines toorganize transcoding of content by media type or device type, inaccordance with various embodiments. In operation 701, the transcodingservice may receive, from a user, an application programming interface(API) call identifying a preset (e.g., a set of transcoding parameters)to be associated with a particular pipeline. As previously described, apreset (i.e., profile) is a re-usable set of transcoding parameters thatare designed to support on or more classes of devices. The preset can beprovided by the transcoding service. Some presets can be generic (e.g.,applicable to multiple device types), while other presets are optimizedfor a specific device type.

In operation 702, in response to the request, the transcoding servicemay associate the preset with the specified pipeline. In operation 703,the service may receive a request to submit a transcoding job to thepipeline. As a result of associating the preset with the pipeline, thetranscoding service will process the transcoding job using the set ofparameters specified in the preset, as shown in operation 704. Forexample, when processing the transcoding job, the one or more computingresources will apply the set of parameters to the media content storedin the input store specified in the transcoding job.

FIG. 8 is a general example of an environment 800 in which thetranscoding and other processing of media content can be implemented, inaccordance with various embodiments. As illustrated, a service providerenvironment 801 can include a variety of devices and components forreceiving and processing requests from various users across one or morenetworks 813. As discussed, access to these resources can be provided asone or more services, such as Web services. In this example, the serviceprovider environment includes a plurality of resources 822, such as datastorage resources and request processing resources, that can be deployedin one or more resource centers (817, 818, 819) in one or more locationsand made accessible over the one or more networks 813. As usedthroughout this disclosure, a network can be any wired or wirelessnetwork of devices that are capable of communicating with each other,including but not limited to the Internet or other Wide Area Networks(WANs), cellular networks, Local Area Networks (LANs), Storage AreaNetworks (SANs), Intranets, Extranets, and the like. The resourcecenters can include any physical or logical grouping of resources, suchas a data center, a server farm, content delivery network (CDN)point-of-presence (POP) and the like.

In accordance with various embodiments, resource centers of the serviceprovider 801 may include various computer servers, data storagemachines, network devices and other hardware resources necessary toprovide the network-accessible services on behalf of the clients of theservice provider. For example, as shown in FIG. 8, the resource centerscan include physical servers and other devices located in a particulargeographical location, which enable the service provider to transcode,process and/or deliver media content to viewer devices (814, 815, 816).In accordance with an embodiment, a resource center can include mediacache servers, transcoding servers, watermarking servers and the like.The view of one of the resource centers 818 is shown in an exploded viewto provide further illustration of the types of resources 822 that canbe contained in a resource center in accordance with variousembodiments. It should be noted that the resources 822 can reside in oneresource center or can alternatively be distributed across multipleresource centers.

In accordance with various embodiments, the service provider 801 offersa media transcoding and processing service 802 in addition to many otherservices discussed herein. In one embodiment, the media transcoding andprocessing service 802 can perform the transcoding jobs of media content808, 809 stored in content stores (e.g. input store 803, output store804) of the service provider 801. In alternative embodiments, the mediatranscoding and processing service 802 may perform various otherfunctions, such as transmuxing the media, adding security information(e.g. watermarks) to the media, translating the media or addingsubtitles and the like.

In accordance with an embodiment, components of the service providerenvironment 801 enable a content publisher 810 to provide (e.g. upload)a media file to an input store 803 and to schedule the transcoding jobsto be performed thereon. In various embodiments, the input store 803 maybe located on the resource center of the service provider or on a remotesystem, such as the system of the content publisher 810. As an example,the content publisher 810 can upload content 824, such as a media file,to an input store 803 and specify that a set of selected workflowsshould be applied to the media file. A workflow can apply a particularprofile(s) to the media content. In accordance with an embodiment, aprofile contains all the information (e.g. settings, parameters, etc.)that may be necessary to transcode the media content into the specificencoding format for a particular device, operating system, orapplication. For example, one or more profiles can be provided totranscode certain types of media content into formats suitable foriPhone® IOS, Android®, Microsoft Windows Phone® and other mobile deviceoperating systems. The media transcoding and processing service 802 thencarries out the workflow, including potentially transcoding the mediacontent stored on an input store 803 into the appropriate encodings.Once workflow is complete, the resulting media content can be placedinto an output store 804. The output store may be located on theresource center of the service provider or a remote system, such as thesystem of the content publisher 810 or other entity, such as the contentreceiver 826. As such, in this example, the media content located in theoutput store has had the workflow applied. From the output store 804,the media content can be made available to a content receiver 826 or thevarious viewer devices (814, 815, 816) for download. In alternativeembodiments, the processed content could be made available to any otherentities, including the content publisher 810 or third party serviceproviders.

It should be noted that the term “transcoding” is often associated witha profile or a workflow in this disclosure; however, the profiles,workflows, and various other features of this disclosure are not limitedto changing the encoding format of media and, in some embodiments, maynot include changing the encoding format at all. For example, a profileor workflow, may include transmuxing, digital watermarking, segmenting,applying access controls, adding meta data, inserting advertisements,translating into various languages, transcribing, changing bit rates,sequencing, changing or adding audio associated with a video, ormodifying, customizing, or making compatible various other features ofcontent in any other manner. By way of illustration, one workflow couldinclude segmenting a video file for multi-bitrate support and addingaudio to the video file and another workflow could include digitalwatermarking and applying access controls to the file. In accordancewith the present disclosure, transcoding may often be a part of variousworkflows, but is not a required part of every workflow discussedherein.

In accordance with an embodiment, the transcoding service can executethe transcoding jobs using the compute instances (805, 806, 807) of theservice provider. In one embodiment, each compute instance is a virtualserver resource or virtual node having a specific processing capacityand memory associated therewith, which allows the service provider tometer the usage of the transcoding service by each client (e.g. theservice provider may charge per hour of computing resource consumed). Inan alternative embodiment, the compute instances can be actual servermachines in the data center 800 maintained by the service provider 801and leased to its customers (e.g. content publisher 810).

It should be noted that while FIG. 8 illustrates an input store 803 andan output store 804 located in resource center 818, the locations ofsuch stores are not limited to any particular resource center, server orphysical computing device. It will be evident to one of ordinary skillin the art that various stores, storage containers, servers, computeinstances, transcoding services and other resources described herein canbe located in any resource center or distributed across multipleresource centers or geographical locations, allowing data or content tobe replicated across all or some of the devices therein. For example,the resource center 817 could be in Europe, the resource center 818could be Asia, and the resource center 819 could be in the UnitedStates. In various embodiments, the various storage containers, servers,compute instances, transcoding services and other resources describedherein could also reside on a single device.

In accordance with various embodiments, the transcoding service 802 canprovide content publishers with an automated transcoding and workflowsystem that is reliable and scalable. The content publishers may definethe transcoding parameters on their own or leverage a set of predefinedcommon device profiles that are provided by the service provider. Thetranscoding service can allow the content publishers to upload contentto the storage instance, define a workflow, store the resulting encodedassets on the service provider's system, and deliver their media assetsto viewers or others, for example, via a content delivery network (CDN)of the service provider. In other examples, the media assets are madeavailable or delivered to third parties for distributing the mediaassets or for providing additional services.

Generally, a content publisher (e.g. customer of the service provider)can register for an account by signing up, for example, with the serviceprovider 801 to gain access to media transcoding and processing service.Once an account is created, media assets 808, 809, 824 (e.g. videofiles) to be transcoded are placed into an input store on the serviceprovider. A workflow can be defined using an application programminginterface (API) 823 or console, for example, to initiate a transcodingjob which will be carried out using one or more of the compute resources(805, 806, 807). The resulting transcoded object(s) are placed into adefined output store 804 or some other specified location, such as alocation on the system of the content publisher 810 or the contentreceiver 826. Alternatively, the transcoding service can cache the mediaassets at the network edge and perform the transcoding dynamically on aper-request basis depending on the type of requesting device.

In various embodiments, the media transcoding and processing service 802can accept media content in a wide variety of incoming formats and canconvert the content into a comprehensive collection of output encodings.For example, the transcoding service can transcode to the media toformats suitable for common devices such as Android® and Apple® IOSbased devices, Flash®, and HTML5 platforms by providing a set ofpre-defined device profiles. The pre-defined profiles can be leveragedby the content publisher when setting up a job via the API 123 or viathe graphical console. These profiles can be used as is or modified intoa custom profile to be reusable for subsequent transcoding job requests.

The content publisher 810 (e.g., customer) may be any content creator,content distributor, user generated content publisher, or any otherentity that possess media content and desires to make that contentavailable to viewers or other entities. Examples of content creators maybe motion picture studios, universities producing educational content,private organizations producing internal video content, and otherorganizations such as online real estate and auto sales companiesproducing videos to increase sales. Content distributors may be cableand television service providers, music distributors, movie purveyorsand the like. Examples of user generated content publishers may besocial media companies, video uploading services, and any other entitythat stores content on behalf of its viewers. The content receiver 826can be any entity that is provided with content 825 that has beentranscoded or otherwise processed by the transcoding service. Forexample, the content receiver 826 may be a third party movie distributorthat wishes to provide the transcoded video content on its own website.

In accordance with an embodiment, the service provider 801 can provide acontent repository for all types of media files for transcoding andencoding. By focusing on the particular requirements of contentpublishers (e.g. multiple input types, scale to handle spikes, and avast range of delivery targets) the transcoding service can provide asolution that can help any type of customer or entity of the serviceprovider.

In accordance with various embodiments, the service provider 801 mayimplement a number of pricing models for using the transcoding service.As one option, the pricing of transcoding service could be based on theusage of computing resources (805, 806, 807) that are utilized by thecontent publisher 810. For example, on-demand transcoding instances canlet customers of the service provider pay for compute capacity by thehour that their transcoding instance runs. This can free the contentpublisher from the costs and complexities of planning, purchasing, andmaintaining hardware and transforms what are commonly large fixed costsinto much smaller variable costs.

As an alternative option, the content publishers can use reservedtranscoding instances. When using reserved transcoding instances,content publishers make a one-time, up-front payment for eachtranscoding instance they wish to reserve for a long period of time(e.g. 1-3 year term). In return, the customer may be given a discountoff the ongoing hourly usage rate for the transcoding instances.

As an alternative option, a set of spot instances could be utilized. Inaccordance with an embodiment, spot instances enable a content publisherto bid on and purchase unused capacity of the compute instances of othercustomers at a market place. In some embodiments, instances sold on thespot market may be reclaimed at any moment if they are needed forcustomers that have previously reserved the computing capacity. Spotinstances may be especially useful for handling seasonal or project peakdemand and large library re-encodes for new codecs. In some cases, thespot instances may be used for transcoding jobs that are not extremelyurgent, because using those instances may incur the risk that otherusers may be using them and therefore none of the spot instances areavailable. In other cases, however, using spot instances may be aneffective way to get extremely urgent work performed cheaply if there isa significant number of spot instances available. Taking advantage oflow bid opportunities for instances, can enable a customer (e.g. contentpublisher) with pricing advantages they have not been offered withoutbuilding out transcoding services on their own.

As an alternative option, pricing by gigabyte (or other unit) oftranscoded content output may be employed by the transcoding service. Inaccordance with an embodiment, gigabyte (GB) usage could be calculatedby adding the size of the input file and the combined size of the outputfiles. For example, if a 1 GB file were to be transcoded into twoformats, each producing a 0.5 GB file, the total amount billed would be2 GB.

As an alternative option, the transcoding service could charge by outputvideo minutes (e.g. the cumulative minutes of the output transcodedmedia). Calculation of content length in minutes by the number of outputformats could give customers an expectation of what they will be billed.The transcoding service could control the number of unique computeinstances that would be launched to support a transcoding job, sincelicensing costs may be determined by the number of instances launchedfor a given user.

As mentioned above, the transcoding service can be configured to acceptmedia content in a wide variety of incoming formats and can convert thecontent into a comprehensive collection of output encodings, includingvarious media formats and bitrates. The media transcoding and processingservice could include an API, user portal, or graphical user interface(GUI) that includes locations (stores) for a content publisher to uploadmedia files. The input store may include any storage, bucket, container,directory, memory location, or any other place where media can belocated. In some embodiments, the input store could have a uniqueprofile associated therewith for transcoding the media file to producean output of the media file in various predefined media formats. Therecould be an input location for commonly used profiles and forcombinations of commonly used profiles. Alternatively, the workflows andprofiles can be selected and applied based on various attributes of themedia file (e.g. file name, metadata, etc.) rather than being associatedwith the input store itself.

In accordance with an embodiment, whenever content is placed in alocation decided upon in advance by the content publisher and theservice provider, the service provider could run a predeterminedworkflow. For example, the content publisher's needs could be to have adaily cable news program transcoded into formats for devices runningAndroid® and Apple® IOS operating systems after the program airs eachday, with advertisements and access controls applied to the media file.These needs can be expressed as a workflow conveyed to the serviceprovider by way of an API or some other interface exposed to the contentpublisher. In one instance, the media input location could be on aserver residing with the content publisher which the service providerhas been granted access to. Therefore, each day, after the cable newsprogram has aired, the service provider may automatically pull andtranscode the file according the workflow conveyed by the contentpublisher. In another instance, the decided upon location could be aserver residing with the service provider to where the content publisheruploads or pushes the file each day after the news program airs.

FIG. 9 illustrates a logical arrangement of a set of general componentsof an example computing device 900. In this example, the device includesa processor 902 for executing instructions that can be stored in amemory device or element 904. As would be apparent to one of ordinaryskill in the art, the device can include many types of memory, datastorage, or non-transitory computer-readable storage media, such as afirst data storage for program instructions for execution by theprocessor 902, a separate storage for images or data, a removable memoryfor sharing information with other devices, etc. The device typicallywill include some type of display element 906, such as a touch screen orliquid crystal display (LCD), although devices such as portable mediaplayers might convey information via other means, such as through audiospeakers. As discussed, the device in many embodiments will include atleast one input element 908 able to receive conventional input from auser. This conventional input can include, for example, a push button,touch pad, touch screen, wheel, joystick, keyboard, mouse, keypad, orany other such device or element whereby a user can input a command tothe device. In some embodiments, however, such a device might notinclude any buttons at all, and might be controlled only through acombination of visual and audio commands, such that a user can controlthe device without having to be in contact with the device. In someembodiments, the computing device 900 of FIG. 9 can include one or morenetwork interface elements 908 for communicating over various networks,such as a Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, RF, wired, or wireless communicationsystems. The device in many embodiments can communicate with a network,such as the Internet, and may be able to communicate with other suchdevices.

Various embodiments discussed or suggested herein can be implemented ina wide variety of operating environments, which in some cases caninclude one or more user computers, computing devices, or processingdevices which can be used to operate any of a number of applications.User or client devices can include any of a number of general purposepersonal computers, such as desktop or laptop computers running astandard operating system, as well as cellular, wireless, and handhelddevices running mobile software and capable of supporting a number ofnetworking and messaging protocols. Such a system also can include anumber of workstations running any of a variety ofcommercially-available operating systems and other known applicationsfor purposes such as development and database management. These devicesalso can include other electronic devices, such as dummy terminals,thin-clients, gaming systems, and other devices capable of communicatingvia a network.

Most embodiments utilize at least one network that would be familiar tothose skilled in the art for supporting communications using any of avariety of commercially-available protocols, such as TCP/IP, OSI, FTP,UPnP, NFS, CIFS, and AppleTalk. The network can be, for example, a localarea network, a wide-area network, a virtual private network, theInternet, an intranet, an extranet, a public switched telephone network,an infrared network, a wireless network, and any combination thereof.

In embodiments utilizing a Web server, the Web server can run any of avariety of server or mid-tier applications, including HTTP servers, FTPservers, CGI servers, data servers, Java servers, and businessapplication servers. The server(s) also may be capable of executingprograms or scripts in response requests from user devices, such as byexecuting one or more Web applications that may be implemented as one ormore scripts or programs written in any programming language, such asJava®, C, C# or C++, or any scripting language, such as Perl, Python, orTCL, as well as combinations thereof. The server(s) may also includedatabase servers, including without limitation those commerciallyavailable from Oracle®, Microsoft®, Sybase®, and IBM®.

The environment can include a variety of data stores and other memoryand storage media as discussed above. These can reside in a variety oflocations, such as on a storage medium local to (and/or resident in) oneor more of the computers or remote from any or all of the computersacross the network. In a particular set of embodiments, the informationmay reside in a storage-area network (“SAN”) familiar to those skilledin the art. Similarly, any necessary files for performing the functionsattributed to the computers, servers, or other network devices may bestored locally and/or remotely, as appropriate. Where a system includescomputerized devices, each such device can include hardware elementsthat may be electrically coupled via a bus, the elements including, forexample, at least one central processing unit (CPU), at least one inputdevice (e.g., a mouse, keyboard, controller, touch screen, or keypad),and at least one output device (e.g., a display device, printer, orspeaker). Such a system may also include one or more storage devices,such as disk drives, optical storage devices, and solid-state storagedevices such as random access memory (“RAM”) or read-only memory(“ROM”), as well as removable media devices, memory cards, flash cards,etc.

Such devices also can include a computer-readable storage media reader,a communications device (e.g., a modem, a network card (wireless orwired), an infrared communication device, etc.), and working memory asdescribed above. The computer-readable storage media reader can beconnected with, or configured to receive, a computer-readable storagemedium, representing remote, local, fixed, and/or removable storagedevices as well as storage media for temporarily and/or more permanentlycontaining, storing, transmitting, and retrieving computer-readableinformation. The system and various devices also typically will includea number of software applications, modules, services, or other elementslocated within at least one working memory device, including anoperating system and application programs, such as a client applicationor Web browser. It should be appreciated that alternate embodiments mayhave numerous variations from that described above. For example,customized hardware might also be used and/or particular elements mightbe implemented in hardware, software (including portable software, suchas applets), or both. Further, connection to other computing devicessuch as network input/output devices may be employed.

Storage media and computer readable media for containing code, orportions of code, can include any appropriate media known or used in theart, including storage media and communication media, such as but notlimited to volatile and non-volatile, removable and non-removable mediaimplemented in any method or technology for storage and/or transmissionof information such as computer readable instructions, data structures,program modules, or other data, including RAM, ROM, EEPROM, flash memoryor other memory technology, CD-ROM, digital versatile disk (DVD) orother optical storage, magnetic cassettes, magnetic tape, magnetic diskstorage or other magnetic storage devices, or any other medium which canbe used to store the desired information and which can be accessed by asystem device. Based on the disclosure and teachings provided herein, aperson of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate other ways and/ormethods to implement the various embodiments.

The specification and drawings are, accordingly, to be regarded in anillustrative rather than a restrictive sense. It will, however, beevident that various modifications and changes may be made thereuntowithout departing from the broader spirit and scope of the invention asset forth in the claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A computer implemented method to process content,the method comprising: providing a plurality of pipelines correspondingto a customer account to schedule transcoding jobs, the customer accountassociated with a plurality of users; allowing a first set ofpermissions to be associated with a pipeline of the plurality ofpipelines, the permissions granting the transcoding jobs in the pipelineaccess to content stored in the at least one content store; allocating aportion of one or more computing resources to the pipeline to transcodethe content stored in the at least one content store; allowing a secondset of permissions to be associated with a subset of the plurality ofusers, the second set of permissions allowing the subset of users tosubmit the transcoding jobs to the pipeline; obtaining, from a user, arequest to submit a transcoding job to the pipeline, the transcoding jobcorresponding to content stored in the content store; determiningwhether the user has been granted the second set of permissions andwhether the pipeline has been granted the first set of permissions;scheduling the transcoding job to the pipeline in response todetermining that the user has been granted the second set of permissionsand that the pipeline has been granted the first set of permissions; andmodifying the portion of the one or more computing resources allocatedto the pipeline based at least in part on the scheduling.
 2. Thecomputer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the portion of the oneor more computing resources is a predetermined allocation of the one ormore computing resources.
 3. The computer implemented method of claim 1,wherein scheduling the transcoding job to the pipeline furthercomprises: providing a session token to at least the portion of the oneor more computing resources, the session token granting permissions toaccess the content stored in the at least one content store.
 4. Acomputer implemented method, comprising: allowing a first set ofpermissions to be associated with a pipeline of the plurality ofpipelines, the permissions granting transcoding jobs in the pipelineaccess to content stored in at least one content store; allocating aportion of one or more computing resources to the pipeline to transcodethe content stored in the at least one content store; allowing a secondset of permissions to be associated with a subset of the plurality ofusers, the second set of permissions allowing the subset of users tosubmit the transcoding jobs to the pipeline; controlling access tosubmitting the transcoding jobs in the pipeline based at least in parton the second set of permissions and the first set of permissions; andmodifying the portion of the one or more computing resources allocatedto the pipeline based at least in part on controlling access tosubmitting the transcoding jobs.
 5. The computer implemented method ofclaim 4, wherein controlling access to submitting the transcoding jobsto the pipeline further comprises: obtaining, from a user, a request tosubmit a transcoding job to the pipeline; determining that the user isgranted the second set of permissions; and allowing the user to submitthe transcoding job to the pipeline.
 6. The computer implemented methodof claim 4, wherein the first set of permissions further comprisesminimum read and write permissions to one or more media files stored inthe at least one content store.
 7. The computer implemented method ofclaim 5, wherein the plurality of pipelines is associated with acustomer account, wherein the user is a privileged user in the customeraccount, and wherein the user is enabled to assign the second set ofpermissions to a group of users, the group of users corresponding to adepartment of the customer account.
 8. The computer implemented methodof claim 5, wherein the user is granted the second set of permissions tosubmit the one or more transcoding jobs to the pipeline, and wherein theuser is denied the first set of permissions to access the content storedin the at least one content store.
 9. The computer implemented method ofclaim 4, wherein enabling the first set of permissions furthercomprises: assigning the pipeline permissions to access content storedin an input store; and assigning the pipeline permissions to writecontent to an output store.
 10. The computer implemented method of claim4, wherein the one or more transcoding jobs are processed from thepipeline by assigning one or more computing resource to transcodecontent stored in the at least one content store from a first formatinto a second format.
 11. A computing device, comprising: at least oneprocessor; and memory including instructions that, when executed by theat least one processor, cause the computing device to: allow a first setof permissions to be associated with a pipeline of the plurality ofpipelines, the permissions granting transcoding jobs in the pipelineaccess to content stored in at least one content store; allocate aportion of one or more computing resources to the pipeline to transcodethe content stored in the at least one content store; allow a second setof permissions to be associated with a subset of the plurality of users,the second set of permissions allowing the subset of users to submit thetranscoding jobs to the pipeline; control access to submitting thetranscoding jobs in the pipeline based at least in part on the secondset of permissions and the first set of permissions; and modify theportion of the one or more computing resources allocated to the pipelinebased at least in part on controlling access to submitting thetranscoding jobs.
 12. The computing device of claim 11, wherein thememory further includes instructions that, when executed by the at leastone processor, cause the computing device to: obtain, from a user, arequest to submit a transcoding job to the pipeline; determine that theuser is granted the second set of permissions and whether the pipelinehas been granted the first set of permissions; allow the user to submitthe transcoding job to the pipeline; and schedule the transcoding job tothe pipeline in response to the user submitting the transcoding job. 13.The computing device of claim 11, wherein the portion of the one or morecomputing resources is a predetermined allocation of the one or morecomputing resources.
 14. The computer implemented method of claim 12,wherein the memory further includes instructions that, when executed bythe at least one processor, cause the computing device to: provide asession token to at least the portion of the one or more computingresources, the session token granting permissions to access the contentstored in the at least one content store.
 15. The computing device ofclaim 12, wherein the plurality of pipelines is associated with acustomer account, wherein the user is a privileged user in the customeraccount, and wherein the user is enabled to assign the second set ofpermissions to a group of users, the group of users corresponding to adepartment of the customer account.
 16. The computing device of claim11, wherein the memory further includes instructions that, when executedby the at least one processor, cause the computing device to: assign thepipeline permissions to access content stored in an input store; andassign the pipeline permissions to write content to an output store. 17.A non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing one or moresequences of instructions executable by one or more processors toperform a set of operations comprising: providing a plurality ofpipelines corresponding to a customer account to schedule transcodingjobs, the customer account associated with a plurality of users;enabling a first set of permissions to be associated with a pipeline ofthe plurality of pipelines, the permissions granting the transcodingjobs in the pipeline access to content stored in the at least onecontent store; allocating a portion of one or more computing resourcesto the pipeline to transcode the content stored in the at least onecontent store; allowing a second set of permissions to be associatedwith a subset of the plurality of users, the second set of permissionsallowing the subset of users to submit the transcoding jobs to thepipeline; obtaining, from a first user, a first request to submit atranscoding job to the pipeline, the transcoding job corresponding tocontent stored in the content store; determining whether the first userhas been granted the second set of permissions and whether the pipelinehas been granted the first set of permissions; scheduling thetranscoding job to the pipeline in response to determining that thefirst user has been granted the second set of permissions and that thepipeline has been granted the first set of permissions; and modifyingthe portion of the one or more computing resources allocated to thepipeline based at least in part on the scheduling.
 18. Thenon-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein theone or more sequences of instructions executable by the one or moreprocessors to perform the set of operations further comprises:obtaining, from a second user, a second request to submit a secondtranscoding job to the pipeline; determining that the second user isgranted the second set of permissions; and allowing the second user tosubmit the second transcoding job to the pipeline.
 19. Thenon-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 18, wherein thefirst set of permission further comprises minimum read and writepermissions to one or more media files stored in the at least onecontent store, wherein the second user is granted the second set ofpermissions to submit the one or more transcoding jobs to the pipeline,and wherein the second user is denied the first set of permissions toaccess the content stored in the at least one content store.
 20. Thenon-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein theone or more sequences of instructions executable by the one or moreprocessors to perform the set of operations further comprises: assigningthe pipeline the first set of permissions to access content stored in aninput store; and assigning the first set of pipeline permissions towrite content to an output store.
 21. The non-transitory computerreadable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the plurality of pipelinesis associated with a customer account, wherein the first user is aprivileged user in the customer account, and wherein the first user isenabled to assign the second set of permissions to a group of users, thegroup of users corresponding to a department of the customer account.